


sleep the clock around

by memitims



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff, M/M, POV Outsider, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 21:39:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4035487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memitims/pseuds/memitims
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>three times they sleep</p>
            </blockquote>





	sleep the clock around

Sarah Rogers always slept better when Bucky stayed over with Steve, because he always helped Steve sleep better, and that was all Sarah could ask for really. Steve had enough to deal with during the day for a twelve-year-old, he deserved to have peaceful sleep at night. When Bucky stayed over, Sarah didn’t wake up in the middle of the night to sounds of Steve’s bed creaking as he got up and reached for one of his sketchbooks to restlessly draw the night away, or to Steve crawling into her bed, his eyes wide and scared and his breathing shallow, or the sounds of him rustling through their bare cupboards in the wee hours of the morning.

Bucky’s mother was kind enough to let him stay at the Rogers’ house a few nights a week, as long as he did his chores and helped his mother with his little sisters – getting them into bed at night, talking them through their problems, making sure they took their medicine. The Barnes girls were talkative and feisty, with a seemingly neverending supply of energy, but they loved their older brother more than anything, so they always listened to him and giggled at his jokes. They loved Steve too, of course, had accepted that Bucky and Steve came as a package deal nowadays, and Sarah had seen the way their faces lit up when Steve tore one of his latest drawings out of his messy sketchbook for them to have.

Little Becca would smile up at him and say “Thank you, Stevie,” because Bucky’s nickname had caught on with his sisters. Steve pretended to hate it, but Sarah could see the tell-tale glint in his eyes that betrayed his secret adoration for the way Bucky had rechristened him.

Bucky was something special, Sarah could tell, just like Steve could tell. He’d changed Steve’s life, kept that miserable look off his face most of his time, watched Steve’s back, and best of all, helped Steve breathe evenly through the night. She wasn’t sure why Steve slept better with Bucky in the room, but she wasn’t going to question it, not when Steve woke up in the mornings looking rested and almost healthy, a glow on his cheeks like the light he had inside him was threatening to escape.

Sarah always checked on them before she went to sleep, poking her head through the doorway of Steve’s room into the dim darkness to make sure everything was okay, especially on nights when Steve was feeling under the weather. She was amused by the way they never seemed to have any consistent sleeping position – sometimes Bucky was curled up in the chair beside Steve’s window, sometimes he was stretched out on a pile of pillows and blankets next to Steve’s bed, sometimes Steve joined him on the floor and made Sarah shake with silent laughter as they ignored the perfectly good bed above them, and sometimes they both fell asleep on the bed, usually with their heads on opposite ends and a small blanket stretched across them.

One night however, after a particularly bad day for Steve’s lungs, where Bucky had spent the whole day staring worriedly at the rise and fall of Steve’s chest, Sarah walked in and found a sight that made her heart nearly break. Steve and Bucky were curled up together and fast asleep, their heads bent close as they shared a pillow, Steve’s skinny arm flung protectively across Bucky’s chest. She smiled and turned away.

\---

Gabe Jones had never been one for sleep. He could get by with only a few hours at a time, and since the rest of the Commandos had figured this out pretty quickly, they hardly ever fought him when he pushed for longer watch shifts. The Captain always looked at him with concerned eyes, asking him if he was getting enough sleep, and Gabe always replied with  _yes, stop worrying about me_. He didn’t mind the extra shifts, he’d just be sitting in his tent and staring at the fading brown canvas in the dark anyways. It gave him more time to tinker around with decrypting the Hydra codes and bringing them closer to finding Zola.

Tonight was weird though. Gabe could feel his eyelids start to droop with half an hour left in his shift, and he was actually grateful that Steve had forced him to let Bucky take over at 2 am, because Gabe suddenly wanted nothing more than to crawl into his tent and fall asleep. He waited out the tiredness, counting down the minutes on his watch, until it was time to go wake Bucky.

Steve and Bucky shared a tent, had volunteered to do so when they realized that there weren’t enough to go around, and Gabe got the feeling that they would have just ended up in each other’s tent anyways. He made his way over to their tent, still keeping an eye out for anything like he was supposed to. The hard ground crunched under his boots and the zipper on the tent stuck a few times, but he finally got it open.

“Barnes,” he called out, “Wake up.” He squinted into the darkness of the tent, but the nearly-full moon behind his back lit up the canvas walls enough that he could make out the two shapes strewn out across their bedrolls. They slept as close together as possible, their bedrolls pushed together and their shoulders and hips brushing against each other. Gabe watched Bucky stir restlessly in his sleep, and he called out his name again until Bucky opened his eyes.

“Your turn on watch,” he said, flipping his unlit flashlight towards Bucky. Bucky nodded sleepily and sat up, pushing a few strands of hair out of his eyes.

“Night Gabe,” he replied. “Go get some sleep.”

Gabe gave him a lazy salute and stepped backwards out of the tent, letting the canvas flap swing back into place. He didn’t miss, however, the way Bucky stared down at Steve’s chest, making sure he could see the steady rise and fall before he turned away, following Gabe out into the dark night.

\---

Sam Wilson had never really felt at home anywhere, not for a very long time. He hadn’t felt it in any of his dorms or apartments in college, nor at his place in D.C., and he didn’t quite feel it at Avengers tower, but it was closer than he’d ever come.

It helped that he shared a floor with Steve and Bucky, because they were some of the best friends he’d ever had, and they respected his privacy, and there was nothing better than waking up to the smell of Steve cooking bacon, the sounds of it sizzling in the frying pan reaching all the way to Sam’s room.

There were bad days of course, ones were Bucky would hardly speak and drifted through the apartment like a ghost, putting a scared and heartbroken look in Steve’s usually bright eyes that wouldn’t disappear until Bucky was laughing again, or at least smiling. Sam was pretty sure there was no problem of Steve’s that Bucky’s smile couldn’t fix, even his small, tight-lipped ones that barely reached his eyes. Steve was the kind of guy that shone like the sun, but all that light seemed to come straight from Bucky.

Sam wasn’t quite sure what exactly the nature of their relationship was, he didn’t like to intrude and figured it was their story to tell, when they decided they wanted to, but he got a pretty clear picture when he’d walked in on them in the kitchen one afternoon, necking like teenagers, with Bucky propped up against the counter and his legs wrapped around Steve’s waist.

“Please don’t have too much sex in the kitchen,” Sam had groaned. “This is a public space.” And then he had backed out as fast as he could, because he loved the two of them to death, but he really didn’t need to hear Steve making that noise.

There was another side to their relationship that they let Sam see more often, or at least didn’t try to hide it well, a side that he came across when he’d come home late from a date with a cute girl that Clint had set him up with, and stumbled upon the two them on the living room couch.

Whatever movie they had been watching had ended, fading to the bright blue DVD screensaver that lit up the dark room and illuminated Steve and Bucky’s sleeping faces. They were curled up on the couch like quotation marks, and Steve’s arm was wrapped around Bucky’s shoulder, pulling his head into Steve’s large chest. Sam couldn’t see Steve’s face, it disappeared where it was buried into Bucky’s hair, but he caught a glimpse of the way his mouth was upturned at the edges, matching the peaceful smile on Bucky’s lips. It was the softest Sam had ever seen them, all their hard edges smoothed out as they breathed against each other in the darkness and quiet of the living room.

Sam grabbed a wool blanket from where it was crumpled on the floor and spread it over them, knowing how much they both hated being cold when they slept. He smiled, admiring his handiwork, and went off to bed.

**Author's Note:**

> title from the belle & sebastian song


End file.
